Pacific Division rivals meet on Tuesday night as the Anaheim Ducks visit the San Jose Sharks on NBCSN. Neither team has played that well to start the season but at least the Sharks are at .500 while the Ducks come into this game with a losing record. It had been nothing but misery for the Ducks at the Shark Tank recently but they broke an 8-game losing streak in San Jose with a 1-0 win last November.
Don't miss the ice action from the SAP Center at 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 25, 2016. Catch every moment of the game live on NBCSN.
We'll have NHL odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NHL Tuesday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The Sharks will be solid home favorites in this contest with the total at 5 or 5.5. Anaheim has a slight disadvantage in terms of rest as they last played on Sunday while the Sharks completed a long road trip in Detroit on Saturday.
This is only the second home game of the season for San Jose as they won their home opener against the Kings 2-1 and then went on the road for five games where they went 2-3.
The Ducks started the season with a ridiculous five-game road trip where they went just 1-4 and they played their home opener on Sunday against Vancouver. They head right back on the road on Tuesday night for this quick one-game road trip before coming back home on Wednesday night against Nashville.
Goalie Report
The Ducks have gone with John Gibson for the most part this season and he has played reasonably well. He had a 2.80 goals against average in his first four games but the team was just 1-3 in his starts. The backup is Jonathan Bernier who played just one game and allowed three goals on 45 shots.
The Sharks have started Martin Jones in five of their six games this season. He has a record of 2-3 with a 2.86 goals against average. His backup, Aaron Dell played well in his one start allowing just two goals on 23 shots.
Key Stat
The Ducks have the look of a team going nowhere this season. They have a “new” head coach in Randy Carlyle who is really just a retread coach. The team played poorly on their opening road trip of the season and Carlyle even split up Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. Anaheim was scoring just 2 goals per game and giving up 2.8 per contest so changes did need to be made.
The Ducks also sent defenseman Jacob Larsson and wingers Mason Raymond and Nick Sorensen to San Diego of the American Hockey League and brought up defenseman Shea Theodore and forwards Michael Sgarbossa and Joseph Cramarossa.
A big part of the problem is that the Ducks are missing Hampus Lindholm who is holding out. Anaheim was a pathetic 2 for 18 on the power play in their first five games.
Lindholm wants close to $6 million per season and the Ducks have reportedly offered $5 million. The Ducks supposedly only have $387,356 currently available under the cap so they will have to do some maneuvering to get Lindholm signed. It could be that Anaheim will trade one of their players to free up cap space but until that happens; the power play is likely to struggle.
The Sharks had dominated this series until last season when the Ducks won the last three meetings. As noted earlier, Anaheim ended a long losing streak in San Jose but it took a shutout to do it. Four of the last six meetings in San Jose have gone under the total.
Free NHL Picks
The Ducks don’t have the look of a team that is going to contend this season while the Sharks still look to be one of the top teams in the NHL. I will lay the price and take San Jose to win this one at home.
NHL Odds: Sharks 4, Ducks 1
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